Inappropriate Behavior

Stories

Murray Farish

This is a work of ction. Characters, places, and incidents are the products of the authors imagination, and any real names or locales used in the book are used ctitiously. 2014, Text by Murray Farish All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher: Milkweed Editions, 1011 Washington Avenue South, Suite 300, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55415. (800) 520-6455 www.milkweed.org Published 2014 by Milkweed Editions Printed in Canada Cover design by Christian Fuenfhausen Cover photo by Vlue 14 15 16 17 18 5 4 3 2 1 First Edition Milkweed Editions, an independent nonprot publisher, gratefully acknowledges sustaining support from the Bush Foundation; the Patrick and Aimee Butler Foundation; the Driscoll Foundation; the Jerome Foundation; the Lindquist & Vennum Foundation; the McKnight Foundation; the National Endowment for the Arts; the Target Foundation; and other generous contributions from foundations, corporations, and individuals. Also, this activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a Minnesota State Arts Board Operating Support grant, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund, and a grant from the Wells Fargo Foundation Minnesota. For a full listing of Milkweed Editions supporters, please visit www.milkweed.org.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Farish, Murray, 1968 [Short stories. Selections] Inappropriate Behavior : Stories / Murray Farish. First Edition. pages cm ISBN 978-1-57131-107-8 (paperback : acid-free paper) I. Title. PS3606.A6925A6 2014 813'.6dc23 2013037871 Milkweed Editions is committed to ecological stewardship. We strive to align our book production practices with this principle, and to reduce the impact of our operations in the environment. We are a member of the Green Press Initiative, a nonprot coalition of publishers, manufacturers, and authors working to protect the worlds endangered forests and conserve natural resources. Inappropriate Behavior was printed on acid-free 100% postconsumer-waste paper by Friesens Corporation.

The Passage
It was an unseasonably chilly morning in late September, 1959, when Joe Bill Kendall waved to his parents from the aft deck of the freighter Marion Lykes. Theyd left Tyler at 3:00 a.m. to get him to the boat on time and to save the expense of a New Orleans hotel room, and now his parents looked, to Joe Bill, small and tired and, his mother especially, slightly worn, the way she kept waving, wiping her face, waving and wiping her face. Although he had not slept the night before, Joe Bill felt no fatigue at all, just the same excited strum in the gut hed had for several weeks. After a few minutes of waving, watching his parents grow tinier and tinieralthough the ship had not yet movedhe blew one last kiss good-bye and turned, took his luggage cart by the handle, and headed toward the passengers deck, hearing nothing but French the whole way. He passed some of the deckhands tying down loads and marking the inventory, and understood every word. He passed a pair of ofcers discussing their plans in Le Havre and picked up most of that as well. It was soon clear that nearly the entire crew was French. Joe Bill made a sudden decision not to let on that he spoke the language. It would be fun; it would make him feel like a spy on a secret mission, not just a kid going abroad for a few months of study on the cheap. At the exact right moment, he could spring it on some unsuspecting ofcer or deckhand, respond to some slight about Americans or some clever quip or worldly statement. Theyd look at him, stunned, amazed, with
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a whole new respect. The man, they would think, is more than he appears. Joe Bills cabinmate was already in the room when he arrived, lugging his cart behind him through the narrow hallways of the passengers deck. Joe Bill was a little disappointed; hed hoped to be the rst. Im Lee, the other man said. I dont mind the top bunk. They shook hands, and Lee looked off to the side of Joe Bill, behind his back and to the left. He was a slight young man a few years older than Joe Bill, dark brown hair and a knobby chin, small, dark eyes beneath dark, large brows. So what brings you aboard the Marion Lykes? Joe Bill asked as Lee untied the gray denim duffel that was apparently his only piece of luggage. He took out three dark pairs of slacks, four or ve white button-down shirts, a handful of underwear and undershirts, some socks. The drawer was only half full when Lee was done with the clothes. He threw the duffel, still containing some weight, onto his upper bunk. Im going to college, Lee said, kneeling back down beside the drawer. Me too, Joe Bill said. You going in France? No, Lee said, not looking up at Joe Bill, still ddling with the clothes in the drawer, lining them up straight and pressing them out at. Sweden. Sweden, Joe Bill said. How about that? Cold up there. Lee appeared to have only the coat he still had on, a green military eld jacket. And dark six months of the year. Or Switzerland. Oh, Joe Bill said. So you havent decided? Switzerland. What school? What about you? Lee said, looking directly at Joe Bill for the rst time, then quickly looking back into his drawer. He set each ball of socks next to the other in a tight, lumpy row.

The Passage

Im going to study at the Institute in Tours. How old are you? Lee asked, setting his eyes on Joe Bill again. Im seventeen, Joe Bill said. This always made him nervous. He was old for his age, or acted older, and when people found out how old he really was, they did one of two things. They either dismissed him as a child or they went on and on about how smart he was for seventeen, how mature, which was just another way of dismissing him. Hed lied about it a couple of times, but the lies made him feel bad, like there was something wrong with him for being the age he was, like it was shameful somehow. He decided that rather than lie and be ashamed, hed tell the truth, and when they dismissed him, hed tell himself that they wouldnt be able to dismiss him for long, that he was way ahead of the game. He was on his way to France, going there on his smarts. Seventeen, huh? Lee said. I joined the Marines at seventeen. How about that? Joe Bill said. A vet, huh? Yeah. Lee stood from the drawer, shut it gently and turned his back to Joe Bill. He reached into the duffel again and pulled out a couple of journals and some pencils, and as he did, a little black plastic rectangle rolled out onto the bed. Lee quickly tucked the thing back into the duffel. So where were you stationed? All around, Lee said, setting the books and pencils on the desk at the foot of the bunk beds. The cabin was close, and Joe Bill had to step back to let Lee in between him and the edge of the desk. But Joe Bill also realized hed leaned in some as theyd talked, both because Lee had turned his back and because of the black plastic object Lee obviously hadnt wanted him to see. Now as Lee stepped by, Joe Bill backed up almost out the door, nearly tripping over his three suitcases that still sat there on the cart. California, Lee said. The Philippines. Wow.

Inappropriate Behavior

Japan. Lee neatly lined up the journals atop the desk and put the pencils in the top drawer. And now to Switzerland, Joe Bill said, moving back into the cabin, putting some six or eight inches between the suitcases and his heels. Thats fantastic, really. You on the GI Bill? Are you planning to unpack or just trip over those things the whole time? Joe Bill took the three green Samsonites off the cart and into the cabin, leaving the cart outside in the hall. He strapped two of the suitcases in the rack beneath the lower bunk and set the third atop the dresser. When Joe Bill popped the locks, the rst thing he saw inside was the red leather Bible. Lee saw it, too. So youre a Christian? Well, yeah, Joe Bill said. Religion was another topic that embarrassed him. He was a Christian, he supposed, in the sense that hed gone to the First Baptist Church of Tyler every Sunday morning and Wednesday night since he could remember, like everyone else. But he hadnt brought the Bible on purpose, had little interest in the subject, and certainly didnt want to discuss it here. His mother had worried about him going to France, a Catholic country, because she thought the people there were drunken and promiscuous. Hed gone, at her insistence, to see Reverend Dunn, whod asked him if he thought he was strong enough to weather the storm of the Papists, if he was prepared not only to stand up for his own faith but to witness to the benighted French as well. He reminded Joe Bill of his duty to be a sher of men. Hed written something illegible in his shaky old hand on the inside cover of Joe Bills Bible, and his mother had packed the Bible with his clothes. Humph, Lee said. He was sitting on the top bunk now, leaning his back against the cabin wall. I mean, Joe Bill started, stopped, said, heck, Im just a guy from Texas. Were all Christians. But Im no preacher or anything.

The Passage

But you believe in God. Yeah, but Theres no God. Well, you can How can you believe in God in the light of science? Lee said, his voice rising to a higher pitch, his palms out-turned in front of him. Science will one day prove everything, gure out everything. Gods something people needed when they lived in the Dark Ages. Step into the light of science, pal. Science is the only god. Well, now, Joe Bill said, I dont know. He felt funny about saying all of this to someone hed just met. But Lee was so sure of himself, somewhat hostile, and Joe Bill felt that to merely back down, or worse, to admit that he agreed with Lee, would make him seem weak, childish, like someone who didnt know what he thought about things. I dont think God and science exclude each other. But if you say that, youre still holding on to the old ways of thinking. You cant water it down by saying its part God and part science or that God controls science. God doesnt control anything. Nobody controls anything, or anyone. You still want to think that theres someone in charge. Theres no one in charge. Were all just alone, on our own. Theres no force but science. Theres no supreme being. Theres nothing but matter, and anyone with any intelligence can see that. With that said, Lee slid off the bunk to the oor, moved quickly past Joe Bill and out of the cabin, pausing to step over the luggage cart. And thus ended the longest conversation the two men would have for some time. Over the next several days at sea, Joe Bill realized that Lee was avoiding him. Joe Bill had always been an early riser, but he was never awake before Lee, and when Joe Bill went out onto the deck, Lee would go back to the cabin. If Joe Bill went back to the cabin, Lee would get up from the desk, close and lock the journal he was writing in, put the pencil back precisely in the

Inappropriate Behavior

desk drawer and go back out onto the deck, casting only the quickest of glances over his shoulder at Joe Bill. At meals the ships four passengers shared a tableJoe Bill, Lee, and the Wades, an older couple who were on their way to visit France following Colonel Wades recent retirement from the Army Signal Corps. The Wades would sit next to each other on one side, Joe Bill and Lee on the other, Lee always sitting directly across from Colonel Wade and eyeing him suspiciously while they ate. The Wades got along with Joe Bill well enough, but they were always trying to engage Lee, who would answer their questions with blunt, toneless replies and never follow up with questions of his own. Mrs. Wade especially seemed fond of Lee. Shed ask him about his plans of studypsychology or philosophywhere he was fromNew Orleansif he had a wife or a girlfriendno and what he wanted to do with his life. Lee merely shrugged and continued eating. One night, four or ve days into the passage, about the time the days became a haze of wave and fog, the four of them were sitting at dinner. Colonel and Mrs. Wade had been talking to Joe Bill about his parents back home in Tyler, and Joe Bill had been giving them the standard stories. When she turned and asked Lee about his parents, Lee just stared for a long moment at Colonel Wade, glowering more than usual. Then he shook his head, blew out a high, sharp laugh, and set his fork down next to his plate. The ocean was rough that night, and the fork rattled against the plate as Lee began to speak. My fathers dead, he said. Ive never seen him. My mother has to work at a drugstore to support herself. Shes old and sick and frail and has to work at a drugstore. Theres America for you. Theyll put her out on the street if she doesnt keep the rent coming in. Put her in jail if she doesnt pay her taxes. Shes never gotten anything for it, either. Just a sore back and wrinkled, calloused hands and off to work again at the drugstore. Theres America.

The Passage

Im sorry, Mrs. Wade said, surprised. I didnt mean to pry. I was just Home of the free, Lee said now, slapping the table and sending his fork to the oor, where it slid against the bulkhead and rattled there even louder. Land of plenty. Hah! Land of a sickness and a cancer. A cancer called money. It eats you and eats you. And when its gone youre dead. Or wish you were. See here, the colonel said. Im so sorry, Mrs. Wade said. Joe Bill said nothing. The ofcers at their table had stopped eating to stare at the scene. The steward had entered the room at the sound of shouting and stood at the corner of the passengers table saying, Please, monsieur, and Lee was still going on, and now he stood and the colonel stood and said, Calm down, but Lee was waving his hands and shouting about America and how it robbed people of their lives and their blood in order to keep the rich in ne clothes and fancy cars, and then he said, And men like you, Colonel, your job is to keep the poor people in line. The state only gains its power through fear. Except in America, you can even convince people its not fear at all, but duty and honor and country and national pride that keeps them going off to the factory and the plant and the drugstore. Sit down, please, Mrs. Wade said now, and the steward said again, Please, monsieur. Sit, please, and Joe Bill watched as Lee said, Colonel, I know. I was a soldier, too, you understand. Youre some kind of damned communist, the colonel said now, pushing his wifes hand away as she reached for his. No, Im not, Lee said. Communisms just another tool of the state. Just another illusion. Im a Marxist-Leninist-collectivist. I knew it, Colonel Wade said, ruddy and livid, pointing at Lee. Why dont you just keep going? Dont stop in Sweden or Switzerland or Denmark or wherever it is youre going. Just keep on. Youd be happier in Russia.

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My mother would be better off there, thats for sure, Lee shouted, then pushed his way past the steward and out the door. I am very sorry, gentlemen, the steward said. Very sorry, madame. It is the ship, certainement. It is not a luxury liner, no? Some people get upset . . . how you . . . cramped? It makes some people . . . irritable. I will try to have a talk with monsieur Lee. If necessary, we will make other dining arrangements. Of course, Mrs. Wade said as Colonel Wade returned to his seat with a snort. Of course, it was my fault, really, she said. I shouldnt have pried. I could tell he was sensitive. Hes nuts, said the colonel now, picking his glass of tomato juice from the holster and bringing it to his face. Again, please accept the apologies of the captain and crew of the Marion Lykes. With that the steward spun quickly away. Colonel Wade turned to Joe Bill. Is he like that all the time? To tell you the truth, sir, Joe Bill said, he really never speaks to me. We talked some the rst day, but since then hes hardly said a word. I dont really see him that much, actually. I have no idea where he goes. Just wanders around on the deck, I guess. Hes gone when I get up in the morning and still gone when I go to bed at night. The poor thing, Mrs. Wade said. I should have just let him be. I have a problem with talking too much, dont I, Richard? I always have. I just had to pry. Its really quite amazing, Joe Bill said. Its like he vanishes or something. This is 1959, Colonel Wade said now. No one can still be that naive about communism. Not after Korea. A mother would have known better. I was never a mother. Female troubles. Its not that big a ship. There are only so many places he could go. Not after Stalin. And the three of them went on like that for the rest of the

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meal, each in their own conversations, their own attitudes of sympathy, mystery, and disbelief, until the steward came again to clear the table, and Joe Bill and the Wades said goodnight. And now another week, or four days, or ten days, had passed. The sky in the daytime was the color of smooth lead, and at night no stars came out and the dark was low and cloying, like the sky had dropped down to meet the water and seal the Marion Lykes inside, holding it in place somewhere far away from the port of New Orleans or the port of Le Havre, and there it would stay until the waters dried up and the sky squeezed the earth into nothingness, until all that was left was matter, and then not even that. If only hed spoken his French earlier, he would have someone to talk to, the deckhands or the ofcers. Joe Bill imagined them up late with a drink in the mess discussing Baudelaire or de Gaulle as the mooring chains clanged against the bulwarks and the ship gently pitched through the night toward France. His spy game had been a bad idea. That was clear. But it was also clear that to suddenly start speaking French now would seem rude at best, make him look like he really had been spying on them, and they would certainly distance themselves from him even more. By keeping his secret, at least he could still listen. On one of these starless, heavy nights, Joe Bill went out on the deck for a smoke, hoping to eavesdrop on the deckhands while they worked. It was starting already, his mother would say if she saw him icking four, ve, six matches before he could get one to light, the collar of his overcoat turned up against the ocean chill and scratching against the stubble he hadnt shaved in a couple of days. Hasnt even got to France yet and already hes smoking. And the truth was, he didnt even like it, didnt even know how to smoke, but he was so lonely and bored that

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so many times smoking a cigarette was the only thing to do. Hed bought his rst pack of Chestereldsthe only American brand on sale in the ships messsometime shortly after the blowup between Lee and Colonel Wade at dinner, the last meal Lee had shared with them. And now Joe Bill was already up to a pack a day because he didnt feel like he could just go stand outside and not smoke, and he was going outside all the time. It was a shame, Joe Bill thought, pufng his Chestereld, that he and Lee hadnt hit it off. They could have been palsnothing like the hothouse of a freighter cabin to form fast friendships. They could have visited each other this fallLee could have come to Tours and Joe Bill could have gone to Switzerland (or Sweden or Finland). It was a shame, but it was unlikely to change now. It was after dinner, and the Wades were on deck as well, but across the ship, at the bow, and just as Joe Bill started over to talk with them, they briskly turned to go back inside, Mrs. Wade tucked under her husbands arm against the cold. Joe Bill waved, but the Wades didnt see him, and again he felt the kind of utter loneliness we can only feel when there are other people around to amplify that loneliness. The Wades, the deckhands, the ofcers, they all had each other, and Lee, well, Lee seemed to want nothing more in life but to be alone, and thus wasnt really lonely. Joe Bill was pacing now, counting his slick-shoed steps like a man in prison. The urge to ing himself into the water actually entered his heart, only failing when the urge reached his mind. It wasnt death he wanted, just a new medium, a new color besides the gray steel of the boat, the grayer steel of the sky. He began to rehearse the letter he would write to his parents as summer neared and it came time to return home, the letter that would beg, cajole, demand the terrible expense of airfare. And as he crushed out one cigarette and reached for another, he heard two of the deckhands speaking in French about the young American. He couldnt tell where their voices were coming from at rst,

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but soon he realized hed made his wandering way down by the cargo stacks. Among the boxes strapped and tarped there, the men must have made some space for themselves to be alone, away from the captain or the mate or the steward. He was in the engine room, drawing something in his book, one man said, and Joe Bill realized it was not him they were discussing, but Lee. He is a strange one. Then Thierry found him in our cabin. Ill kill him. And Thierry said to him, But monsieur, surely you know this area is private. And he said? He said he was lost. Lost at sea. Thierry said, Yes, monsieur, it happens. This ship all the decks look alike. Uh-huh. And the American says, In Russia, where Im going, there is no private property. I can come into your room any time I like. And you into mine. So its Russia, now? And Thierry says, But monsieur, this is not Russia. Naturally. And the American said? He said he was sorry and left. But it was what he said as he was leaving that is the point. What was that? He says, Ask your captain why this passage is taking so much longer than usual. He says, Ask him about the other boat, the one that met us last night, and the people who got on and off. What? Thats what he said. He is a lunatic. But it is taking longer.

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Conservation of fuel. Budget cuts. Low-paying passengers. I was up all night. There was no other ship. He reads too much. Did you hear anything? Michel, do not be a fool. We are in the middle of the ocean. And we are heavy, too. And the wind is against us, and it is autumn. It is taking longer than usual. When we land, youll see that nothing has changed. Lets hope. Your hope will be rewarded. So in addition to being surly and rude, Lee was a sneak, probably a thief. And crazy. You could never know what someone was up to. What was this business about Russia? What could Lee have been drawing in his notebook? What was he always writing in those journals? This nonsense about another boat meeting up with them? Why did he have that tiny camera? Joe Bill was sure now that what he had seen fall from Lees bag that rst day on board was a camera. It was no bigger than the pack of cigarettes he now pulled from the inside pocket of his overcoat. Again he struggled to light his smoke. After a couple more cigarettes, Joe Bill went back inside. It was still too early for bed, and he wasnt tired, but he was going to go into his cabin and read in his bunk until he fell asleep. He didnt care if Lee was in there anymore. He was tired of feeling like he was the one who was wrong, like he was the intruder. He wasnt some boy to be pushed around; he was a man, and it was his cabin, too, and if Lee didnt feel like sharing it in a civil manner, that was his problem. But when he brusquely opened the door of the cabin, Lee was not inside. When youve lived in a place so small for as long as they had (how long now?), you can feel before you even see it that something is out of place. Joe Bill took off his overcoat and loosened his tie and looked around the cabin. It just felt wrong, but only barely wrong, like the motion of the ship had shifted

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things around. He sat down on the bottom bunk to unlace his shoes, then quickly kneeled on the oor to check his luggage. It was there, securely strapped just as hed left it. He stood again and unbuttoned his sleeves, took off his shirt and hung it by the collar from the hook at the foot of the bunk, and when he did, he saw what was out of place. One of Lees journals was lying open on the desk. They usually sat, carefully locked, one atop the other in perfect order, but tonight he could see the words on the page, if not make them out. This was not good. Lee never left the journals opened. Every time he got up for even a moment, hed close and lock the tiny hasp of the journal and return it to its spot at the edge of the desk. Had he just gone down the hall to the bathroom and forgotten to lock this one? Or was it some sort of a trap? There was no right thing to do. If he closed and locked the hasp and returned the journal to its place, Lee would know. If he left it there and Lee hadnt done it on purpose, hed think Joe Bill had opened it. If he just got dressed again and left the cabin, acted like hed never been there? This might work, but what if Lee should walk in while he was dressing, and wonder why, and see the journal open there? Hed never been like this before this trip with the lunatic Lee. Hed never had to worry about being a sneak or a louse because he wasnt one, and so he had no idea how to get out of looking like one now. There was no reason for anyone to be suspicious of Joe Bill, but Lee certainly would be. There was no reason for Joe Bill to be suspicious of himself. Lee had done this to him, with his sneaking around and disappearing and never talking to anyone except to say something awful and rude and arrogant, and how could anyone get along with someone like that? Well, damn it all. Hed walk over there like a man and close the damn journal, and if Lee so much as asked him about it, Joe Bill would let him have it, but good. Or to hell with it, leave

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it open, just like he found it. No, close it. Thats the thing to do. Thats what a man would do, and if he were asked about it, he wouldnt let Lee have it. Hed calmly tell Lee that hed left the journal openor anyway, that the journal was open on the desk when he came in, and hed simply closed it out of respect for Lees privacy, because two men sharing such close quarters should have respect for each other. That was the idea. He walked to the desk. And he wouldnt have read a word if the rst thing he saw hadnt been this: I here by renounce my citezanship in the United States. I take this action with all understanding. I am not doing this lightly or with out thought. I plan to seek citezanship from the suepreme Soviet in the USSR. I have made my desision for political reasons and it is nal. Joe Bill began to ip through other pages in the journal. Each page he saw was a variation of the same theme, the same message, the same erratic spelling. On other pages was writing that Joe Bill recognized as Cyrillic, in the same handrow after row of the same words, also in slight variations, which Joe Bill knew were conjugated verbs. So Lee had a secret language, tooRussian. There was a loose scrap in the journal that said: S. Bulgakhov, svt emb, Helsinki. On another page was row after tighter row of signatures: Alek Hidell, Alek J. Hidell, Alex Hidell, A. J. Hidell. On a page near the end he read: The actions of nations can be easally understood, but the actions of human beings are unfathamable. It was one thing to talk about communism, even one thing to be a communist or a Marxist or whatever Lee was. It didnt bother Joe Bill, at least not to the extent that it had bothered Colonel Wade. But for a manespecially a veteranto defect to the Soviet Union, this was another thing altogether. For a man to have contact information at a Soviet embassy. And that little tiny camera, and sneaking around the boat, and who was Alek Hidell? And now the question was, what to do about it?

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He could go to the ships captain, explain the whole thing, how the notebooks were open and he had never meant to look at them, but now that he had, the captain had certain responsibilities. He could wait until the ship dockedsurely it wouldnt be but another few daysand go to the rst US consulate he could nd, tell them about Lee and his plans. Or he could go to Colonel Wade and see what he thought. He was still ipping through the pages of the journal when he heard Lee say, I havent been reading your Bible, Joe Bill. He turned to nd Lee standing right next to him, practically over his shoulder, and Joe Bill realized that at some point, without knowing it, hed actually sat down in the desk chair to read the journals. Now he stood, too quickly, and the chair fell back against the oor. Lee was standing close, and Joe Bill tripped over the chair and bumped into Lee as he stumbled past. Lee calmly went to the desk, looked at the open journal for a moment before looking back to Joe Bill with just the barest hint of a smile. He did not speak. Im sorry, Lee, Joe Bill said, trying to get his legs beneath him for the ght he was sure was coming. I came in and the thing was sitting there open, and I know you never leave them open, and I was going to close it when I saw . . . He was silent then. What did you see? Lee said, after several long seconds passed. I saw what youd written there. Lee looked again at the open journal, the Cyrillic words. You saw where I was practicing my Russian? Yes, Joe Bill said, slowly balling his sts. I didnt get to go to college, Lee said. We couldnt afford it. I joined the Marines. And pretty soon in the Marines, you realize that youve got to have something to keep your mind working, or youll go nuts. I studied Russian, taught myself how to speak it and read and write it. I taught myself. Pretty smart, huh?

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It is, Lee, Joe Bill said. Well, you caught me, huh? I study Russian. I guess that makes me a suspect now. No, Joe Bill said. I think its very impressive. Well, Im glad for that, Joe Bill. I sure did want to impress you. Thats the most important thing in the world, isnt it? For underlings to impress their betters. Thats what makes the world go round, right? Thats what keeps the machine turning. Be a good boy and Ill throw you a bone. Lee, I dont think Im your better. You think youre everyones better, Lee said now, slapping the journal shut and moving toward Joe Bill, who took a few steps back. Youre so young and so smart. A little too smart, arent you? Want to be a big man, but youre always playing games. You think I dont know about your game? Lee was standing right in front of Joe Bill now, pointing at him, nearly poking him with his nger. What are you talking about? The way you listen to everyone all the time. You think I dont know you speak French? I can tell by the way your ears prick up when the ofcers are talking at dinner. And youre not just getting a word or two here and there. You speak good French. Ive watched you listening to the crew. They probably know, too. Youre not exactly subtle about it. Joe Bill could feel himself moving ever closer to the door of the cabin as Lee continued to advance. He wanted to disappear. Joe Bill had sneaked around like some sort of spy the entire time hed been on board, and for no reason at all other than to make himself feel superiorlike a mysterious, grownup man, with his school-taught French and his smarts and his damn cigarettes, which he wanted now very badly. They were in the pocket of the overcoat that hed thrown carelessly over the top bunk, another thoughtless invasion of Lees privacy and space. And as he stood there and looked at it all, not just all hed done that night but all hed done the entire trip, although

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Joe Bill was not physically afraid of the smaller man, he wished he could take a beating for it, and he thought he knew how to make it happen. I also saw the other things, he said. Lee stopped pointing and stood back from him, quiet for a moment. What other things? The thing about renouncing your citizenship, Joe Bill said. The signatures. The little camera. All of it. He relaxed himself completely to take the rst blow. But it didnt come. Instead Lee turned and went to the bunks. He took Joe Bills overcoat from the top bunk and folded it neatly on Joe Bills bottom bunk. He then pulled himself up onto the top bunk and sat cross-legged facing the desk. Sit down, he said. When Joe Bill didnt move, Lee pointed to the overturned chair and said again, Sit down. Joe Bill moved slowly toward the chair, picked it upright, and sat there. Lee sat very still and looked down at him from the top bunk. This is important, Joe Bill, so I want you to listen to me, okay? This is the most important thing youre ever going to hear in your life. Joe Bill nodded. There is a very good chance that therell come a day, maybe soon, maybe not, but its coming, when youre not going to want to have had anything to do with me. People may come and ask you about me, about how we spent this time together on the ship for France, and what do you remember about me, what kind of person was I? And theyll hound you about this. Lee stopped talking for a moment and brought his hands in front of him and crossed them there. Joe Bill, looking up at Lee, began to feel the strangest moving sensation in his chest, and for a moment he couldnt place its familiarity. But as Lee leaned in a little to speak again, as he took a deep breath, Joe Bill knew it was, of all things, the urge to cry. Now, this is the important part. Youre not going to be able

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to say you never knew me. But youre denitely not going to want to tell them you read my journal or that you knew anything else about me. The camera, for example. You never saw the camera, understand? The thing to say is that I was strange, and quiet, and that when I did talk, I was spouting off about communism. Got it? Maybe you can even say I didnt believe in God, but no more. Because if you do, Joe Bill, youll regret it. Theyll destroy you. And youve got a good life to go lead, so dont mess this up. Strange, quiet, kept to himself, communism. Thats it. Joe Bill tried to nod, but his lip quivered. This was ridiculous. He hadnt cried since he was a child, had never had a reason to, and he didnt have one now, and yet he felt his cheeks tighten and his mouth dry up, and he fought, with all he had, the need to wipe his eyes. And then the tears started, and that night on the boat would be the last time he would cry until that terrible afternoon four years later when he next saw Lee Harvey Oswald, on television, being led away in cuffs and screaming, Im just a patsy! while reporters bumped his bruised and beaten face with microphones. Two days after that, he saw Lee shot to death in the basement of the Dallas Police Department by Jack Ruby, and the tears came again, right in front of his fellow airmen in the rec room at Bergstrom, Joe Bill only hearing over and over again what Lee had said to him that night on board the Marion Lykes: Its like this, Joe Bill. Remember the story from your Good Book about Peter, and how he denied Jesus three times? Well, pal, I aint Jesus, and you need to deny me as many times as they ask. And they did come and ask, although they didnt hound him the way Lee had said they would. The men from the FBI asked a few simple questions, and Joe Bill gave them Lees answers, which seemed to be the answers they wanted, and they went away. And he told the Warren Commission, and they sent him away. And the reporters came, and Joe Bill said the same things to them. Over the years, people who were writing books

The Passage

21

about Oswald and the assassination would turn up, and theyd ask Joe Bill the same questions, and Joe Bill would tell them the same things, maybe a little more here and there, but hed never say the big things, never ask his own questions: Why did Lee go to Russia, and for whom? Who supplied Lee with tiny cameras and contact information at Soviet embassies? How much of his life was an act, a game? How much was a story, and how much was real? What did Lee know in September 1959 about November 1963? He couldnt possibly have known that he would assassinate a president who wasnt even president yet. But hed known something, certain as death. And, of course, there was the biggest question of all. It was there, asking itself, the day his son was born and the day his rst wife died. The day he awoke in the hospital bed after his heart attack, it was there. Every morning as he drove alone to work, on his pillow in whatever company house or roadside motel he slept in as he followed the dry holes and gushers of the west Texas oil industry, it was there. Its been with him every day since and will be forever, and its the one question he has an answer for: What did you do about it, Joe Bill? And the answer is, nothing. Joe Bill never has told his whole story. Hes slept and eaten and lived and loved with all his shaky knowledge and his shadowy questions in his own mind alone, all of this set against the one true fact he knows: that hes failed, somehow. Failed Lee and America and himself and his children. Hes failed in part because its too difcult to keep it all straight in his head. All the information is confusing and confounding. Theres simply too much of it, with the books and the commission reports and the evidence and the documents. Hes failed in part because time has passed, and now the whole thing was a long time ago, and no ones asking anymore. Mostly hes failed because he knows the stories about the million-to-one accidents and sudden diseases and visits from strange men in the middle of the night. Every so often, hell go through a stretch of time, moving from

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Inappropriate Behavior

place to place, when he feels hes being followed, watched. His heart jumps every time the phone rings. He knows people are not who they seem, are more than they appear. Hes failed because he was, and is, afraid. But one day he did tell a writer the story of his last night with Lee. They were to dock in Le Havre the next morning, and Joe Bill was trying to iron his shirts. He wasnt good at ithis mother had always taken care of that. And after watching him struggle with the task for a while, Lee stood up from the desk where he was now openly practicing his Russian and took the iron from Joe Bill. After a moment or two, he said, Im going to spend a couple days in France, and I need to know how to say something. Joe Bill gured hed tell Lee how to ask for the bathroom or the restaurant, gured hed also tell him that most people in France spoke English, especially the service workers, but Lee said to him, as he pulled a sleeve taut and moved the iron across it, Tell me how to say, I dont understand. I dont understand? Yeah, Lee said. You want to know how to say, I dont understand? Would you just tell me? Lee said as he folded Joe Bills shirt and set it neatly in the open suitcase, before taking up another and stretching it across the board. I dont understand is Je ne comprend pas, Joe Bill said. Juh nuh comprenduh pas? Je ne comprend pas. Je ne comprend pas? Je ne comprend pas.

Ready for Schmelling

My name is Perkins, and my story begins on a Monday. Just as I was about to leave my desk after another day at the international corporation where I am employed, I happened to glance out the window to see a man crawling across the parking lot. I watched him as he crawledhands and knees, attach handle in his teethfrom the front steps of the building all the way to the third row of cars, a good sixty yards or so, just like a baby in a blue business suit. When he got to his dark green Ford Taurus, the midlevel company car, he stood, took his attach from his mouth, dusted himself off, got in and drove away in what I have to assume was the normal modeseated, strapped in, ten-andtwofor a man of his age and station. I had long ago quit wondering, or at least asking, about most of what went on at the IC. I started there three years agojust after Marcie and I got married, just before my father diedand I had seen more than enough corporate and individual doltishness, weirdness, and outright stupidity to make me seriously question the veracity of the yearly nancial reports, which show us as a major player in the IC world. I had witnessed scal irresponsibility and massive waste offset by arbitrary niggling and concealed by necromantic accounting. I had narrowly escaped involvement in churlish turf wars. I had seen grown men and women reduced to paranoid hysterics by such matters as their table assignment at the company picnic or having their name left off a memo concerning this months coffee fund. I had learned that the single most important task one can
23

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Inappropriate Behavior

master in business is that of assigning blame, and I had seen the best of the best ply their trade with such a profound lack of conscience that it would be debilitating in normal life. I was even there the day last March when Terrence McNeilwho never learned the corollary to the Most Important Task, that one must diligently avoid blamecame by to show some of his former coworkers in Vendor Support the business end of his Winchester side-by-side. But I had never seen a man in a blue suit crawl across a parking lot before. It wasnt until after the man had driven away that I noticed the other workers on my oor standing at the window watching the same spectacle. I thought of calling someone over and saying . . . what, I dont know . . . maybe, what the hell? But then, I had done a pretty good job of remaining unnoticed since my transfer to Contracts six months before, wasnt even sure any of the others on the oor knew my name. I could envision calling to someone and having them look at me blanklyor worse, with alarm, the McNeil incident still fresh in our mindsthen phone security, or worse, ask our manager who I was, and the jig would be up. You see, I had no idea what I was doing in Contracts, no idea what my job was even supposed to be. I got hired in PR, then two and a half years later, I got a memo saying that my requested transfer to Contracts had come through. Contracts? I went to my supervisor, who was still up to her neck in blaming people for the McNeil business. She said it was a mistake but to go ahead and report to Contracts the next day and shed get things straightened out. For the past six months Ive sat at my desk for eight hours a day doing absolutely nothing. When a contract comes to my desk, I pretend to read it, sign it, and pass it on. I read a lot of newspapers and magazines, spend hours on the Internet, thumb-twiddle, navel-ponder. And I got a raise, a nice one. And almost to the day of my transfer, the economy went south, or the news started talking about it going south, and all of a sudden I needed the money.

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I talked it over with Marcie, and since the whole country was laying off people left and right, we decided that Id take the raise and stay there for as long as I could until I screwed up and they red me, which, since the IC did not admit mistakes, usually meant a handsome severance package in return for the dismissed employees enduring silence. So every morning Id get to my desk and thered be a stack of three or four contracts waiting there, and every evening Id leave those same contracts in the outgoing mail. Easy as that. So while I was interested in the strange man and his stranger method of perambulation, I felt it was best, given what I thought was a tenuous grasp on my frankly embarrassing income, to simply let the matter pass without comment. Apparently the others on my side of the oor felt the same, because no one said a word about it. They simply turned from the window and left for the day, moving silently out of the hallway and into the elevator. When I got home to Marcie, I told her about the man and how he crawled across the parking lot. Marcie is a painter. Her work was just beginning to appear in some of the smaller local galleries. I told her she should paint that, get a mental image of what I was talking about, and paint the man crawling across the parking lot. I advanced the themes of abjection, endurance, possibly even protest. She said if she painted it, she wouldnt show the man at all. But, Marcie, I said. Thats the whole thing about the painting. Nope, she said. The whole thing about the painting is you. Me? Yes, she said. You. Standing there watching him. She started that very night. The rest of the week passed without incident. Every day at a little before ve, I would peer out the window, looking for the man to crawl across the parking lot, but he never did. I thought I caught a glimpse of him one day, walking normally, and I tried

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Inappropriate Behavior

to follow him with my eyes all the way to his car, to see if it was the same man. But there were lots of men in blue suits and lots of dark green Ford Tauruses, so I wasnt sure. That Friday night when I got home from the ofce, Marcie was very glad to see me. She met me at the door and kissed me deeply, her arms around my neck and her tongue dabbing madly in my mouth. Before I could even get a word out, she was taking off her clothes, and then she took off mine, and we made love there on the living room oor. After, both of us still unclothed, she took my hand and led me to the spare bedroom that served as her studio. There on the easel was the sketch of the painting we had talked about. I was standing at the window in coat and tie, with a look on my face that was a mix of revulsion and pity and confusion and, I thought, just the barest hint of shame. I thought of mentioning to Marcie that revulsion and confusion were right on the money, and that pity was goodI should have felt pity somehow, I thought, and it made me feel a little bad that I hadntbut I had not been ashamed. Instead we got dressed and went out for drinks and a steak dinner, which is what we always did on Fridays after Marcie had a good week of work. When we got home, we made love again, this time on the oor in the studio, with me on top, a reversal of our earlier interlude. I rubbed my knees raw from bracing against the canvas drop cloths on the oor of the studio. I was a little drunk, but more than a little preoccupied as well. Every time I looked up from Marcie as I moved above her, I saw the sketch of me standing there in the window. It was really good; even I wasnt sure what I was looking at anymore. When I got to the IC Monday morning, there was something that seemed a bit out of drawing, off-kilter, something imperceptible that nonetheless made me want to x it, like in school when the teacher would leave that one little scratch of chalk on the blackboard after she erased it; if youre like me, your whole day was ruined. That little chalk mark would distract us to the edge of madness. The IC was like that on Monday morning,

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except I couldnt nd the chalk mark to erase. I looked for it, all the way in from the parking lot, up the concrete steps and through the huge glass doors, through the marble-oored lobby past the PR ofce where I used to work, up the elevator to seven, all the way to my desk by the back corner near the window, I looked for it, but was unable to locate the problem. Everything seemed to be in order to the untrained eye: The people I saw every day were moving about in their everyday fashion; there was a stack of contracts on my desk awaiting my careful vetting; there was nothing different about the decor. Everything was as I had left it Friday, except that it wasnt. It was as if something as implacable and yet imperceptible as a bump in the orbit of the Earth had nudged everything slightly aslant, and it was going to stay that way. I tried to work through it, but all day my timing was just a bit off. Where before I had carefully observed my coworkers movements, and scheduled mine, to avoid even the most lighthearted banter, I was now running into them every time I left my desk: at the coffee machine, in the restroom, at the copier. There was one man in particularcall him Smithwho kept asking me, each time we met, how I was doing, as if I had somehow changed in the thirty minutes since Id run into him last. Smith was an unsightly fellow, short and squat, a heavy sweater with a thinning blond comb-over, tiny black eyes that made him look sort of prurient behind his thick, black-plastic-framed glasses, a puffy dewlap above his collar. Fine, Smith, and you? Id reply, and each time he answered the same. And it wasnt just Smith. The managera gray-haired, slump-shouldered man of sixty or soseemed to be lurking around quite a bit that day. Remember, now, Id never met this man, didnt even know his name. Id watch him walk to his car in the afternoonsI always tried to stay huddled in my cubicle until I was sure hed left for the day. He parked in the rst row, drove the more prestigious company car, the blue Lincoln, and his hunch-rolled stroll to his automobile was usually all I saw of

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Inappropriate Behavior

him. Today he was wandering around seven like some kind of golem, never stopping to speak or even so much as look at anyone, his face an attitude of profound confusion. I tried to avoid his gaze, stayed crouched over the papers on my desk in what I hoped passed for intense concentration, and when he started to get too close, Id skulk away to the bathroom, walking a little bent-kneed to stay below cubicle level. My evasive maneuvers were effective if belittling, and I made it through the end of the day, still employed, but no closer to nding that overlooked chalk mark. Just as I was about to leave my deskwhile watching the manager slumping along to his car, head down, feet like clayI heard a sound from outside my cubicle. It was Smith, and he was, for some reason, saying, Psst, and peeking over the top of the partition. Howre you doing, Smith? Fine, and you? Another day. Not quite yet, Smith said. Smith, I said, suddenly aware that he had to be standing on his tiptoes, would you like to come into my cubicle? Thanks, he said, his head and neckwhich were one piecethen the rest of him appearing from behind the partition. Are you ready? Yes, I said. All done. So . . . I guess Ill see you tomorrow. No, no, no, Smith said, then peered furtively back behind the partition. He turned back toward me, leaned in close, and, barely whispering, said, Are you ready for Schmelling? The only thing I could think to say was, I dont know, at which point Smith put his hands on my shoulders and whisked me from my chair. We moved together like dance partners toward the window, where we stopped and, lacking much space in the cubicle, stood very close. I could smell Smith next to me; just above his sweat were the odors of cigarette smoke and Brut aftershave. Up close, I could see that he had had a terrible acne

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problem, and had some sort of wen on his nose as well, up near the inner canthus of his left eye, causing his black frames to rest slightly crooked on what passed for the bridge of his pug nose. He was a thoroughly unattractive man, but I soon saw that something amazing was happening to his face. He was glowing, turning a healthy, sanguine scarlet, his eyes gleaming like tiny black pearls behind his glasses, his lips trembling in what can only be describedor at least I saw it this way, and still believe it trueas the paroxysms of rapture. I wanted to see what was exciting him so, but I was so transxed by the bliss on his face I was unable to turn my attention. His breathing was coming a little heavier now, starting to fog the window in front of him. He made a quick, jerking motion with his right arm, grabbed his graying shirt sleeve in his palm and wiped away the condensation. It was then that he said, in a gasp and a squeal, There he is. I looked out the window, down into the parking lot, where the man who had crawled to his car the previous Monday was this Monday doing a perfect phys. ed. crabwalk across the parking lot: his arms directly perpendicular to the ground, his knees bent at T-square-grade right angles, kicking forward on cue to propel himself to his car like some sort of Cossack dancer. Whereas the week before he carried his attach case in his teeth, today it rested on his perfectly at chest, at no point threatening to upend. When he got to the third row, to his dark green Ford Taurus, he bent his arms a bit, and then, all in one motion, sprung to his feet and caught the attach between both hands. He pirouetted to face the building, raised the attach above his head like a championship belt, and offered the slightest of bows. With that he turned again, unlocked his car, got in and drove away. I stood and continued to stare out the window, having no idea at all what to make of this. Just as I was about to turn and ask Smith . . . what, I dont know . . . he took an audibly deep breath and expelled that breath with, God, I admire him. He stood in reverie just a second more, then turned, patted me on

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Inappropriate Behavior

the back and said, Well, see you tomorrow. And with that he was gone. Maybe now would be the time, in a quick hundred words or so, to explain something to you, about me. I am a simple man, basically, in terms of how I view the world. I do not believe the world is a confusing place, so long as one does not unnecessarily complicate ones view of it. I do not believe in UFOs, Bigfoot, angels, mysticism, magic, channeling, that there was a second shooter on the grassy knoll, or that 9-11 was an inside job. I do not believe that there are any underlying mysteries. I do not believe in looking either above or below the surface of things, because I think theres more than enough on the surface to keep us occupied for the length of any one life, which, I believe, is all we get. I do not believe in God. I do not believe in heaven. I do not believe in hell. I believe that life is this world alone, is what we make of it, each to his own abilities and needs. Knowing all of this about myself, I can, I think, be forgiven for a moment of stuporous inactivity, a stunned paralysis of movement and speech, even of thought. I nd it hard, however, to let myself off the hook, for by the time I was able to move, Smith, along with the rest of the seventh oor, was gone, and I was left all alone. I knew I should do something, that seemed clear. But what? How does one react to a grown man crabwalking across a parking lot with an attach on his chest, especially when that man, or his actions, have apparently inspired some sort of cult following among the people with whom one works? I thought at rst to move, quickly, to ee, to get out of that building, use my sick time for a few days until I gured out what to do, or gured out a way to never go back. But then I caught sight of Smith, walking, as normally as Smith could, across the parking lot to his car. I saw him get into a gray Saturn, and as soon as he did I sprinted from my desk down the seven ights of stairs and made it to the parking lot just in time to see him drive away. He turned left out of the parking lot and I ran madly to my car to tail him.

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When I got onto the access road, I could see Smiths car heading west on the highway, so I oored it and jumped two lanes of trafc to follow him. Just as I hit the highway, my cell phone rang. It was Marcie. When are you coming home? she said as I wrenched my neck to hold the phone while keeping both hands on the wheel. I was doing nearly eighty, and Smith was still well down the road. The late September sun hung blandly in my windshield, and I reached up with my left hand to lower the visor, dropping the phone from my neck as I did. I managed to shift my hips and catch it in my lap, but not before swerving into the service lane, then swerving out against an angry, guttural horn blast from a semi to my left. Im just going out for a quick drink with some friends, I shouted into my lap as Smith began a rightward move across trafc, some quarter mile ahead of me. Friends? Marcies voice came from the phone, dubiously. Some of the guys from work. I wish youd come home, she said. I have something incredible to show you. I saw Smith exit onto Dunleavy. I swerved, said to Marcie, I wont be late, then ipped the phone closed while executing a nifty move between a school bus full of band members and an SUV. I had to hurry, or Smith would get lost in side streets. When I got to the top of the exit onto Dunleavy, I saw Smiths car turn into a strip mall six blocks down the road. At least he wasnt going home yet. As badly as I wanted some answers, I wanted no part of Smiths home life. There are things in this world you just cant get out of your head, and Smiths house, I knew, would be one of them. His car was parked in front of a Walgreens, so I parked nearby and went inside. I could imagine catching Smith in an aisle where youd rather not be caught, perhaps foot care or fungicides or protective undergarments. But a fairly good look around the place brought no sign of Smith. I was approached

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Inappropriate Behavior

by a retarded boy in a blue smock who asked me if he could help me nd anything. When I told him no, he moved on to someone else, a woman who said, Yes, cough syrup, at which point the retarded boy called someone to help the woman nd cough syrup. I left Walgreens thinking Smith must be in another of the shops in the strip mall. But when I got to the parking lot, the gray Saturn was gone. Not knowing what else to do, I went home. On the way, now driving with the last of the sun at my back, I thought about how silly all of this was. That I would go chasing after Smith like some sort of madman, as if Smith had any answers, as if the incident I had witnessed even merited answers. I realized now that Schmellings antics in the parking lot were nothing more than that, antics, some sort of frat prank that he and his acolytes never outgrew, a symbolic thumbing of the nose at the IC and the conformity it bred, and if Smith and some of the others were a bit carried away by the whole thing, that was their problem, not mine. When I got home, Marcie was again very glad to see me. She met me at the door, already unclothed, and the next thing I knew, she was on her knees in front of me. When she nished, as I hung there, leaning against the front door to support my shaky legs, she took me by my limpening member and led me to the studio. There was the sketch, but now a full painting, nished and beautiful, maybe her best work yet. My face and white shirt were colored by the setting sun through the glass of the window, which she had somehow portrayed without showing any glass at all. My tie was an iridescent stripe of blues and greens and reds woven together to produce an effect of color the likes of which Id never seen. My hand against the windowpane was the pictures most stunning feature. I seemed from one angle to be waving; from another, I held up my hand as if to say, Stop! From still another, I was a startled man bracing himself against the glass, which, as Ive said, was both there and

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not there at once, which led to an even more eerie effect, that of a man trying not to fall as the building behind him leaned. I was completely carried away by the painting, so much so that I hadnt noticed Marcies hand moving on me, working me back to a state of arousal. Before I could speak, Marcie dragged me to the ground and climbed on top of me, inserting me into her as I became fully hard again. This may have been the singleor double, or triple, I lost countgreatest sexual experience of our marriage, and by the time we were done, even the palms of my hands and the soles of my feet were tender from pushing against the canvas drop cloths. After, lying together on the oor beneath the easel, beneath the painting that could very well be the best American portrait since Whistlers Mother, I told her about Schmelling, that today, instead of crawling, he crabwalked, told her Id gured it all out, that he was some poor midlevel schmuck who was never going anywhere and that his way of rebelling was to put on this weird act in the parking lot every so often. I wanted to tell her about following Smith, about the way things seemed out of place at the IC that day, about having to avoid the manager, about the retarded boy at Walgreens, but I never got the chance. As soon as I got it out about Schmelling and the crabwalk, she leaped to her feet as if someone had poked her with a cattle prod. I tried to call for her, but she was already gone from the room. Shed run into our bedroom and locked the door, and standing there in the hallway, naked and cold and covered with the sticky, drying liquids of our love, I could hear her crying. After trying the door and calling for her a couple of times, I, not knowing what else to do, went to the guest bathroom to take a shower. While I was in there, lathering and rinsing and trying to guess what in the world Id done wrong, I could hear her stomping about outside in the hall between our bedroom and the studio. I wasnt that alarmed, really, at least not as alarmed as I realize now I should have been. I mean, I lived with Marcie, she was my wife, and she was temperamental, and

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Inappropriate Behavior

much more of a believer, or at least much more receptive, to the things in life that oat beneath the surface (which, as I said before, we create for ourselves as need be). Marcie was the artist, the woman of moods and funks and elations, and I was the calm, levelheaded one who kept us grounded in the world and made the work she did possible. It was the perfect arrangement, it seemed to me, each of us using our own skills and bents and frames of mind to make our marriage a true union, to make up one body that was prepared to meet the world on whatever terms it asked of us. I still had no idea what Id done wrong, but I decided it didnt matterId get out of the shower, towel off, and then go to her and hold her until she calmed down, and Id say Im sorry and Im sorry and Im sorry again, for whatever Id done to upset her. And then the door opened, and she ung back the shower curtain and threw in the painting in six neatly razored, beautifully colored strips. I jumped quickly to dodge the initial burst of whatever she was throwing at me, but when I saw it was the painting and that it was being ruined by the water, I tried to pick it up somehow. She stood there, tiny and furious, wreathed by steam. Just leave it, Marcie said. Youre the one who killed it. Marcie, what are you talking about? I thought No, you didnt think, you son of a bitch. You didnt think at all. What are you . . . why did you do this? I could ask you the same thing, couldnt I? She was really screaming now, trying to talk through the kind of tears that should be saved for those two or three times in your life when unless you cry like that theres no way to go on living, the kind of tears that leave you completely at their mercy, when you cant even control your arms and legs and spine anymore, so you ail around in some kind of rhythm that only your sobbing knows. You . . . murderer! When I stepped out of the shower, she got control of herself enough to run from the bathroom. She returned to the bedroom

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and locked the door and stayed in there and cried all night long. I lay on the couch and watched a show on Animal Planet about otters and their lives until I fell asleep. When I awoke the next morning, early, she was already in the studio, with that door locked as well. I gured it would be best to leave things be for a while, to go on in to work and give her some peace, and then, when wed had a chance to clear our heads, talk about it tonight. So I got dressed and drove to the ofce. As I started down the access road, I looked about to try to see the thing that had bothered me the day before, the missed chalk mark. But I couldnt nd it again, and as I approached the IC, as I pulled into my parking space, as I went through the huge glass doors and across the marble-oored lobby past PR and into the elevator, it seemed that someone else had found it and erased it unequivocally. Everything was in order, the way it had always been, as though during the night, fearing discovery by my wary eye, whoever or whatever had shifted things had come and shifted them back, sighing with relief over the closeness of the call, determined never to try to sneak anything past me again. The elevator disgorged several women from Marketing onto three, a janitor got off on four, and I was alone and feeling ne up to seven. I looked down at my tie, which was, coincidentally, the same tie I had worn in Marcies picture. I was straightening it in the shiny brass reection of the elevator keypad just as the bell for seven rang. I reached down for my briefcase, and when I looked up, I was staring straight into the blank and pitiless face of the manager. My heart stoppedI really believe it didfor just a second, and then it began to move about wildly in my chest like some sort of little swamp mammal trapped in an underwater tree trunk. The manager was a bit taller than I, and he looked down at me with baggy, red-rimmed, jaundiced eyes that registered nothing about who I was or what I might be doing there in the elevator, much less attempting to get off on his oor. I was so riveted with fear that until I was shoved aside by them,

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I didnt even notice the IC security guards at the managers elbows, accompanying him like escorts at a pageant or a dance. They moved by me and brought the manager into the elevator. I turned, still looking into the yellow sclera of the managers eyes, our gazes locked, until one of the guards said, Getting off, Mr. Perkins? Hearing my name snapped the spell the old man had on me. I looked back and forth quickly at the two other men to ascertain which of them had said it, which of them knew who I was, although it could hardly matter. If one of them knew me, the other did, too, and everyone else on seven as well, and everyone in the entire IC, and that meant that this otherwise unremarkable Tuesday was to be, no doubt, my last in the employ of this prestigious concern, and that tonight, instead of patching things up with Marcie, I would spend the evening updating my rsum, making phone calls, and trying to gure out how to keep paying our mortgage on nothing more than an unemployment check. I moved from the elevator, down the hall to the main room of the oor, and toward my desk in the corner near the window. It seemed to take forever to get there, as if this morning I were the one with feet of clay, but the time it took me to get there allowed me to notice a rather strange thing. Everyone on the oor was looking out from behind their cubicle partitions as I passed. At rst, I gured this was the natural instinct to watch a dead man walking, but this was not the casesome of my coworkers winked, others smiled and gave a thumbs-up, still others nodded in that sharp, professional manner that young executives must spend hours practicing in their mirrors at home. Much about this, obviously, struck me as rather strange: (1) that I had seen the manager being led away in the traditional manner of dismissal, a dismissal of which I believed myself and my poor performance in Contracts to be the direct cause; (2) that, because I wanted to avoid scrutiny, I was usually among the rst employees at my desk each morningand had

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in fact come in even earlier than usual, owing to my night on the couch and my tful otter dreamsbut today everyone else was already there, as if they were waiting for me; (3) that they all seemed to know something I didnt, something about me; and (4) that just as I was about to enter my cubicle, out popped Smith with a sort of Al Jolson move, a ta-da move, arms out to the side in presentation of himself, weight on one leg, head cocked, vaudeville grin on his face, and he led the entire oor in a raucous rendition of For Hes a Jolly Good Fellow, which rendition would have been rather touching in its raucousness, had I even the slightest idea what I had done to merit it. After the song, me still outside my cubicle, there was much backslapping and carrying on, many Go get em, Tiger s and Youre the man s, even a Well done, Perkins from an old-schooler I couldnt identify in the melee. I thanked them all, because there seemed to be little else to do, and as I thanked them they slowly moved away, all but Smith, who stood there by my side the whole time, as if we were somehow in thisin what?together. I looked at him, and he made a motion with his hand, directing me into my cubicle, a motion that said, Well, lets go, and so I did. There was a box with all the things from my desk sitting on the oor by my chair and a bright orange Post-it note on my computer monitor. Written there in heavy black felt-tip ink were the words: Perkins! See me! Schmelling! All those exclamation marks! And why was my stufffour copies of Newsweek, three of Time, a half roll of Life Savers (Wint O Green), an unopened Cross pen and pencil set, a spare tie (always keep one in your desk, Dad had said, one of the last things hed taught me before his heart exploded)in that cardboard box on the oor? It could only mean one thing. But then, why were all the others so proud of me, winking and backslapping and congratulating me with song? Could it be that they all hated the IC, that they envied my imminent dismissal? And really, what had I done that was so outrageous? All I had done was not ask any questions; really, it was a matter of

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respect for the IC and its decisional prowess; I had gone where they told me to go, read what they told me to read, sort of, and signed what they told me to sign, and if I had been doing such a bad job, why had it taken six months for them to notice? I had certainly not done anything like Terrence McNeil, nothing even as bizarre as what Id watched this Schmelling do not once, but twice, in successive weeks, what he had apparently done enough times before to become a hero to everyone on seven and God only knew what other oors as well. And now heSchmelling!wanted to see mePerkins! Perkins who had never done anything truly wrong in his life, Perkins who just wanted things to go easy, who didnt make waves, who kept his head down and turned his work in on time, who had a house and a wife at homesure, shes a little odd, shes an artist, try to understandand if they wanted me to go back to PR, Id go. It was all a terrible mistake, but it wasnt my mistake, see, and the thing is, I was only trying to keep whoever had made the mistake from getting in trouble, I wanted to be a good team member, and yes, I should have known better, I know Contracts is far too important, Contracts is no place for a person like me, Perkins! Ill never let it happen again. I promise. At that moment, I heard a noise outside the cubicle. At rst I thought it was my heart again, but the sound soon grew too loud even for that. It was a clap, then a stomp, then a clap, then a stomp, and soon all the employees on the seventh oor were doing it, clap, stomp, clap, stomp, in unison, and somewhere in the midst of it all, a woman began to sing, the words, if there were words, unintelligible, the tune a whiny, unmelodic descant above the percussion of clap, stomp, clap, stomp. I looked out and saw Smith standing across from me, sweat popping out of his forehead and that forehead red again, much more so than the day before. He was clapping and stomping and clapping and stomping, and his teeth were clinched, his mouth a rictus of pleasure and pain at once, his yellow teeth glowing against the redness of his cheeks and neck, his eyes shut tight behind the

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thick black frames as if he were so transported that to look on anything in a world as banal as this would be unholy, unnatural. Afraid to move from my cubicle, I decideddecided is too strong a word, I was beyond deciding anythingto stay where I was and wait for whatever was causing this apocalypse to come to me. But I was beyond being able to do even that, beyond being able to do nothing. As if some unseen, giant, but still gentle hands had hold of me, I felt myself being lednot drawn, but ledout into the hallway between the cubicles. It was an irresistible force, and I didnt even try to avoid it. I knew that whatever I would see on the other side of my partition would change me forever, irrevocably, from being who I was to being someone I was not prepared to be, and I could only hope that somehow, as I had been led to Contracts and led to the window to watch Schmelling that rst day, I would be led to an understanding of my new self, to adapt and grow and somehow live with what I would soon become. There in the hallway, the workers were lined up, clapping and stomping, clapping and stomping. The woman singing was now in a wailing frenzy of sound, and there was no longer any question about words; it was just sound, animalistic, primal, going from groaning to screaming and haphazardly hitting every octave in between. Some people were falling on the oor and rolling about in some kind of corporate Pentecostalism, still clapping and stomping all along. The room, the oor, had become incredibly hot, from all the strenuous activity of the untested muscles and lungs, yes, but also from some other source, as if hell, if you believe in that sort of thing, had opened a branch ofce right here on seven. I was beginning to come back to myself in some way, to realize that what was happening here was wrong, and again, that urge to ee that I had felt briey the day before returned to me. I thought of the box of stuff on the oor near my desk, turned right to look for it, and there was Smith, grinning wildly. I turned my head left, and there was Smith again, still grinning.

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I looked away, closed my eyes, and set my feet to run the gauntlet of my writhing coworkers, but just as I did, I felt Smith lean in near my ear. Are you ready for Schmelling? I opened my eyes, and I saw him. It was Schmelling, and this time he was walkingif you can call it thatunder the weight of an enormous ledger that he carried on his back. The book was as large as a queen-size mattress, made of brown skin the color of cedar, its brass rings as wide as Hula-Hoops, the pages thick and coarse as canvas inside. I dont know how he was able to carry the thing by himself. I knew he was strongyou try the crabwalk sometime, its toughbut I would have thought ten men would have strained under the weight of the astonishing book, and it hurt me to see him bearing it alone. Forget for a moment that I should have been thinking, What the hell is the deal with this huge ledger? And why is he lugging it through this madhouse to begin with? For all I can tell you is that at that particular moment, my only thought was to help him with his burden. So I did. I met him halfway across the room, and he, blue eyes popping, face purple with stress, his sandy blond hair matted with sweat, looked up at me from beneath the ledger. All noise in the building, save the sounds of our heavy breaths, stopped immediately when our eyes met. I said, Id like to help you with that, Mr. Schmelling. He grunted something that was probably not a word, and at rst looked at me with demurral. But I wouldnt move, and slowly he assented, and slowly he began to jog the ledger higher on his back so I could get my shoulders underneath. I nally did and discovered I was correct about the weight of the book. Together we started to move, and the singing woman sang, Aaaiiieeeeeeee! and the clapping and stomping started again, and we carried the ledger together. I was immediately tired from the strain, but I never even thought of putting it down, of not carrying my share of the load. After a while, the tiredness disappeared, and it was as if we had somehow shufed off the limits

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of our selves, the limits that fatigue and fear and pain place on us in this life, and so we carried on, I never asking where we would stop, and he never telling. FinallyI have no idea what time it was, it was late, it was dark outside the windowswe came to an area of the oor that was cleared of cubicle partitions, and there we set down the book. Smith and a couple others scurried out to open the front cover, then they turned several pages at a time, looking for one that was blank. Two of the women rolled caster-bottomed ofce chairs beneath Schmelling and me, and we collapsed into them. I was too tired at that point to even look at the book, and so instead I simply slumped forward with my head in my hands. I really cannot tell you what I was thinking, other than I remember the incredible fatigue and the incredible sweetness of having that ledger lifted; I felt so light, so empty. It seems to me now that at that moment, all of my thoughts had been cleared away, that my mind was indeed a clean slate, tabula rasa, like a newborn childs, ready to be lled again with new thoughts, new ideas, new attitudes and visions, as if, from then on, everything would be new. I wasnt even sure I knew my name. I felt a hand on the back of my neck, strong and sure, rubbing the soreness out, comforting, loving, and I knew it was Schmelling, and for a time, that was all I could think: Schmelling, Schmelling, Schmelling! All of my worries and regrets and doubts and fears, about my job, about my father, about Marcie, faded away. And I loved him, and I looked up into his face and I knew that he loved me. I put my arms around him, and we rolled our chairs together into a grasp, an embrace, a bond I knew would last as long as life, or at least until retirement age, or, who knows, maybe for all eternity.